Historical

The walk along the warf of Chelsea Piers was anything but quiet. Vendors shouting, children screaming and bumping past my shaking knees - I couldn't hear my own thoughts. Just as well, because I never wanted to hear them.

Each step along the sidewalk sent a shudder through my frail body, following a rhythm of three taps for each stride. As another child nearly knocked me into yesteryear, I grunted and tightened the grasp over my cane. I was getting too old for this.

I remembered a time when I was once young enough to race those children down to the docks. I'd laugh and skip with my longer limbs, giving them a handicap. Life was much simpler in those times, before the market crashed. Parties were frequent, business was booming. Everything was a game we were winning.

And then the crash hit, crumbling our empire. The United States plummeting from it's high tower.

"Ramblings of a fool," I muttered to myself, wheezing a little as the sidewalk started to slope downward. "You were drunk in the thirties anyway, that's nothing you would remember."

My destination was much quieter than the main part of the pier. There were less people gathered, the crowd thinning just a bit. Thankfully the slope evened out, and I could catch my breath. Looming brick buildings stood like sentries in the waning light, the gold halo of lamps slowly becoming lit as the sun dipped behind Lady Liberty. I paid no mind - my eyes were too bad to enjoy it like I used to.

At the edge of the pier, tucked away like a child's forgotten toy, stood the skeletal remains of a boathouse. I remembered it from its hayday, when its body was full and nearly a mile long. Like a long warehouse meant to stretch over the Hudson Bay. As the years passed, more and more of it became delapidated from lack of use, as the company went out of business. Now all that was left was the front door. A large arch with an empty metal grid over the face, the burnished red of rust staining the edges.

At least a hundred feet away, embossed in brass like most plaques in New York, was a cement slab for a memorial. I drew as close as I could, the ache in my chest faint, but still throbbing like an infection.

TITANIC DISASTER

RMS Carpathia at Pier 54

I hadn't cried in front of the plaque in over twenty years, but it seemed I was getting sentimental in my old age. Ancient feelings I thought I had lost to years of visits and alcohol suddenly came rushing back, along with memories I wished time had erased. Aching loss, burning lips, hazel eyes. The cold, cold water, and splashing bodies that struggled until their muscles froze. A child screaming for their mother, and their voice growing quieter and quieter. I remembered my own skin coated in salt and frost. The light that left my lover's eyes as the water claimed her soul.

It must be disconcerting to see someone crying over a building's skeleton, let alone someone of my age. Though, I must clarify that some of the tears were of relief.

I knew this would be my last visit to the pier.